


So Turn Around and I'll Pick up the Slack

by Devilc



Category: Shadow Line, Thorne
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Mathematics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 20:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/904550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devilc/pseuds/Devilc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jay wants him, and Jay usually takes what he wants, when he wants it, or he breaks it if he can’t have it, so that nobody else can.</p><p> But he hasn’t done either of those things.</p><p>(Yet.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Turn Around and I'll Pick up the Slack

**Author's Note:**

> Something I found in a notebook of mine, and, since I'm trying to be creative again, I decided to type it up.
> 
> The crossover with Thorne is more of a cameo.
> 
> Title comes from from Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back"

The first night that Ratallack goes to a club _after_ is … strange. He doesn’t _need_ to do this anymore. He doesn’t need to find an older man to become his next sugar daddy … or even just find a person willing to give him a place to sleep for the night, a bite to eat, and a shower in the morning. He doesn’t need to come to clubs and trade to survive. Not anymore.

He has the luxury of picking up a guy and fucking just because he wants to.

It’s not that Ratallack has never fucked just because. It’s that it happened so long ago he strains to remember _how_. The part of his brain that does the numbers? It’s still running those previously necessary equations of survival.

He throws his head back and laughs when he realizes he’ll have to re-learn how to do what comes naturally to most of the guys in this club. (Re-learn what once came naturally to him.) It’s just … he’s been scouting clubs for gain and survival pretty much since the age of 13. He’s a pro. It’s why he’s still alive when several other pretty boys from his first days in the clubs aren’t.

It’s a new thing to him, what he’s now doing for a living. It’s a new thing to be wanted for his brains -- his abilities with numbers and maths -- and not for his blond curls, big blue eyes, his delicate looks, and his ability to suck an old man’s cock.

Looks, the kind that get a person noticed and kept? Those are tricky. They require having the right clothes and the right hair and being careful how much you drink, smoke, or snort. They require timing, too. There’s no use to being pretty at the wrong time and place, or with the wrong person.

Maths are straightforward compared to that. 2+2 is always 4. It doesn’t deviate. Once you learn the rule, it’s _always_ the rule. Assets = Liabilities + Capital. In a right angle triangle, A squared + B squared = C squared. The square root of 2 is an irrational number. You cannot divide by zero.

People? Reading people runs the gamut from arithmetic to the higher maths. Some people are 2+2. Others are 2+2 one day and divide by zero the next. And some people of Ratallack’s acquaintance are variable equations -- they run a wide gamut. Today’s output depends on today’s input.

And the sad thing is? Many people don’t recognize anything beyond the basics.

Take Gatehouse, for example. He _looks_ all 2+2=4 with his glasses and his hat and gloves, his pressed shirt, crisp trousers, and his scrupulously polite and measured tones, all topped off by that sad Irish mug of his.

Ratallack can’t believe that so many people fall for that. That people who should know better, people who have seen what happens in the deep end of the pool, seem to forget that a person can’t get to Gatehouse’s position without deceit and blood on their hands. Talk about does not compute.

Ratallack looks down and realizes he’s got an untouched drink in his hand. He takes a sip, rolling the scotch over his tongue -- he gets to drink scotch now and not whatever he knows will make people see him as cute and coy -- and … his mind leaps to Jay Wratten. Jay, on the other hand, is square root of 2 and everybody picks up on that straight away and it rattles them, because they know it’s off, the square root of 2. It’s there. It exists. It’s not wrong. It’s not an error … but it’s not comfortable, it doesn’t conform to the rules of the ordinary, every day numbers.

Thing about irrational numbers is that a person just has to accept them as they are. Ratallack takes another sip of his scotch, internally bemused that he should be checking out hot guys and planning his approach, and he _still can’t shut the maths up_. Irrational numbers have their own unique set of rules … not that knowing their rules makes them comfortable or rational.

He screws his eyes shut and when he opens them again, there, across the club, unmistakable even amidst the chaos of flickering lights and thumping noise, amongst the wallflowers, is Jay.

Ratallack has seen Jay at clubs a few times _before_ , glaring at anybody who dares approach. Their eyes meet and Ratallack winks and blows him a kiss as he wonders what kind of an interest Jay has in a club like this. He’s not gay or even sexual as far as Ratallack knows. A gay dance club isn’t a good place for their operation to launder money -- places like this get too much attention as it is. Also, at their level, you don’t don’t deal with, much less even know the names of the street dealers pushing your product.

(Ratallack gets offered blow on a regular basis. Mostly he says no, because the day that Gatehouse or Jay have reasons to suspect that he isn’t tip-top? That’s the day he gets retired. Besides which, Ratallack’s seen enough addicts in his life to know that it’s a fucking _job_ , being a junkie. A 365-24-7 job, and the pay and the perks are for shit.)

~oo(0)oo~

It’s a warm spring night as Ratallack steps out the door of his favorite club and starts heading to his (perfectly ordinary and boring) flat in Muswell Hill with this night’s catch in tow. The guy’s name is Phil, and Ratallack likes that bit of premature silver threaded into his black curls just above the ears. He looks to be late thirties, lean and slim, and and he’s got just a hint of his Irish accent when he speaks. Phil made it pretty clear that he normally doesn’t go for guys about 15 years his junior, but Ratallack kept after him because something about the gleam in Phil’s blue eyes and the way that he laughs tells Ratallack that he’s going to give as good as he gets, and that’s what he wants tonight.

His mind is on peeling Phil out of those skinny jeans he’s got on when Jay bursts out of the club’s door, hard on their heels. “Piss off!” he snarls at Phil, seizing Ratallack’s arm (hard enough to bruise) and starts hauling him away.

Normally, Jay Wratten telling a bloke to piss off while giving them _that_ look is enough to send them scurrying off, tail between their legs. Phil, on the other hand, stands his ground -- Jay’s got inches and more than a few stone on him -- cocks his head at Jay, smiles back at him _just as crazy_ and growls, “Nah, I don’t think so.” To Ratallack, he says, “This an ex of yours?”

Ratallack, mind a-spin with iterations of the ways this could go horribly wrong, steps in between them and tries to push them apart. “No … just --” Yeah, exactly _how_ does anybody describe Jay? _Colleague?_ No. _Friend from work?_ No. _It’s complicated_ says everything, nothing, and the wrong thing all at once. “What’s your damage, Jay?” The words slide out of his mouth before he can stop them.

Jay smiles at him, and fuck all, every time Jay smiles like that, all Ratallack can think is: _He’s the Joker from Batman_.

“He’s got half of Scotland Yard on his speed dial.”

 _Oh._ This is awkward. “That true?” Ratallack asks Phil.

Phil shrugs as he steps warily back. “I’m a pathologist, not a cop.”

“But you work with them, yeah?” Ratallack presses the issue.

“Yeah, but --”

“Sorry,” Ratallack says, “don’t do law enforcement types. Nothing personal, but I’ve had some bad experiences with coppers and the like.”

“Didn’t realize you needed a resume for a shag,” Phil says as he spins on his heel and angrily stalks away.

When he gets out of earshot, Ratallack says to Jay, “There’s nothing at my flat, you know. Nothing at all.”

Jay shrugs. “Maybe. Maybe not, but Gatehouse and me, we’ve got an eye on a DI your Phil is really chummy with.”

“What?” Ratallack hisses, exasperated, “You want me to seduce _him_ instead?”

Jay shakes his head. “No. We want to never, ever, end up on DI Thorne’s radar. He’s …” Jay draws the pause out, “... perceptive.”

_And I don’t even want to know how you know this. Though I should probably find out what made you notice one DI in particular._

Ratallack closes his eyes, smooths a hand over his hair and draws a deep breath in through his nose before blowing it out through his mouth. He needs a smoke. His evening’s pretty well fucked at this point. It just late enough that he doesn’t fancy having to start all over again at a different club. It’s been a week since he’s had a proper shagging -- work’s kept him busy -- and he’s wants _somebody_ , not his hand. But enough people here have seen Phil go storming off and have probably come to the dead wrong conclusion that Jay’s a boyfriend, and not want to get in the middle of it.

He opens his eyes to find Jay a hairsbreadth away, looming over him. “You still here?” Ratallack spits the words.

Jay says nothing, just cants his head the other way, eyes bright, looking at Ratallack like he’s something in a case on display.

 _Right_. Ratallack means to blow past him, but the solution to an equation he wasn’t aware of until just now clicks into place as soon as he shifts his weight.

All those other nights in the clubs that he’s spotted Jay, and the way that Jay looms over him and looks at him, and the way that from day one, Jay gets as close as he can to Ratallack, but doesn’t get touchy-feely ....

Jay Wratten likes him. This is his way of tugging Ratallack’s pigtails.

Well, maybe likes is a bit strong of a word where Jay is concerned.

Jay _wants_ him, and Jay usually _takes_ what he wants, when he wants it, or he breaks it if he can’t have it, so that nobody else can.

But he hasn’t done either of those things.

( _Yet._ )

Ratallack’s knees turn to jelly.

This is beyond dangerous and well into completely fucking mental, what he’s considering.

 _Yeah, but since when have I been safe?_ he thinks. This is a bad idea -- just like everything else he does.

“Never planned to live forever,” he whispers under his breath.

Jay raises an eyebrow at seeing Ratallack’s lips move.

“Well, c’mon then,” Ratallack says, grabbing Jay’s hand, “I haven’t got all evening.” And that’s true. He doesn’t have all evening, but he does have however long it takes to see this through -- until one of them kills the other, or until Gatehouse does. (And, right now, the odds lean towards Gatehouse doing one or both of them in.)

He glances up as he strides towards the carpark where, doubtless, Jay’s left his car. Jay’s got a gleam in his eye, one Ratallack’s never seen before, and it takes him a minute to parse the emotion -- joy. Jay’s version of it, at least. “Your place,” he tells him. “And, you’re going to fix me breakfast.”

Jay’s crooked grin lights up his face. He’s actually a good looking man when he’s not out to actively scare the piss out of people. And like Ratallack, he’s also a lot smarter than most people suspect.

 _If nothing else, time spent with Jay is never boring,_ Ratallack thinks.

It’s one of the fundamental properties of irrational numbers -- they don’t repeat.


End file.
